By Ian Camacho,
Staff Writer.
Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero is the latest installment in the Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi series, released 17 years after the release of the third game in 2007. Now, Sparking! Zero brings new light to the series with new characters and transformation across the series. This game has been so highly anticipated that it became one of the top selling games before it was even officially released.
The game itself has a beautiful art style, staying close to the art in the show, with an added 3D look to it. The game itself consists of three major game modes. The first is episode battle; it is the story mode of the game with the twist of eight different stories revolving around different the points of view of different characters, such as Goku and Vegeta. It also allows players to replay major events in their life, but there are parts where if requirements are met, the story can change.
Custom battle provides replayability by letting players create their own stories with their favorite characters and share them with everyone else. This keeps the game fresh by supplying players with plenty of battles that have different stories and outcomes. “I like the addition of custom battles because of how it gives the player more freedom,” said senior Andres Martines.
Online and offline battles are modes where players can fight real players or practice by fighting bots. The developers have also gone above and beyond with the skill of these bots, making them really difficult to fight. The bot will either shoot the same moves or get players in a combo that is difficult to break out of, but once players get a feel for the controls it becomes easier and more rewarding.
While battling, players notice that some characters have more or less health than others. This is because this is an unbalanced game, which means that the strongest character can win against the weakest character with no difficulty. This is an element that most fighting games are missing because they are focused on competitive balancing in their games, which leaves some people upset. Meanwhile, Sparking! Zero, with its unbalanced fights, brings fun to the game alongside high quality animation and interactions between characters. This is the game that Dragon Ball fans and fighting gamers were waiting for.
